Piracy hurts the content industry. This has been the common line of thought in the piracy and copyright debate for years now, and even though study after study highlight that this is simply not the case - or at least, not as clear-cut a case - the content industry and its avid fans continue to spread this party line. Well, yet another study, this time from the Japanese government, has concluded that piracy actually increases anime DVD sales.

Finally a cited source for the constant claims, although how this covers the "many European countries" part I'm not sure so I will still remain annoyed at that part. Thank you. It is however possibly only just the case in the UK as our EU directive implementation only just came into force but I would have to check if it is as lenient as your laws. I suspect it is closer to what I have found for France. I've not found a canonical source yet but to quote from a passed amendment on their EU directive implementation:

"The author cannot forbid the reproductions made on any medium from an on-line communication service by a natural person for his personal use with no direct or indirect commercial purposes, except for the copies of a software other than a backup copy, provided the reproductions make the object of a royalty as stated by article L. 311-4 ."

My interpretation of this is a backup copy of software is allowed, other copies are not. Which if this went through would imply it would still be illegal in France for software subject to whatever article L. 311-4 says of course.

I believe, but can't find the source sorry, that a European court judge has stated that publication of material occurs in the country the server is located. As such you are breaking the law in that country so the piracy isn't 100% legal there just isn't much that can be done about it.

Not sure if your "we" in do not have common law is just the Netherlands or Europe wide but the UK has common law, and also from a little bit of reading case law, i.e. decisions made by judges affecting future outcomes does happen in the Netherlands so they do have an influence based off their interpretation.

Now in order to save face a little I will argue semantics. You say piracy is legal. If it isn't copyright infringement to download a personal copy then there is no piracy taking place in your country, this means that Piracy is illegal, just that you are not commit it